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Deck Repair in Ottawa

Deck Builders Experts repairs decks across Ottawa, starting underneath with the ledger, the footings and the frame rather than with the boards you can see.

Most deck problems show up on the surface long after they started somewhere else. A soft board is usually a symptom. A loose guard, a stair that has dropped and a frame that moves when you walk on it all have causes below the decking, and that is where we look first.
Ledger and flashing checked first
Footing depth and post bases assessed
Straight answer on repair against rebuild

Get a Deck Repair Quote

Tell us what you are seeing and roughly how old the deck is.

What can we help with?

So the right crew reviews your project.

No obligation. We reply within one business day.

The failure that actually matters

The Ledger Is Where a Deck Comes Off the House

The ledger is the board bolted to your house that carries one entire edge of the deck, and when a deck fails catastrophically it is usually the ledger connection that let go. Two things kill it. The first is fastening: nails rather than structural fasteners, or too few of them, or fasteners that missed the rim joist behind the cladding and are holding nothing but sheathing. The second is water. Without proper flashing over the ledger, rain runs down the wall, sits behind the board and rots the rim joist of the house from the outside in. That damage is invisible from the deck and often invisible from inside. When we look at a deck, the ledger is the first thing we get eyes on, and if there is any doubt we open it up.

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The Deck Repairs We Get Called Out For

Five problems, in roughly the order of how serious they are once we are under the deck.

A ledger that is failing quietly

Missing flashing, nailed rather than bolted, or fasteners that never reached the rim joist. Repaired by exposing the connection, replacing rotted material and refastening and flashing correctly.

Posts set in concrete

A post embedded directly in concrete traps water and rots right at grade. The fix is a new post on a galvanized saddle sitting above the concrete so water can run off.

A corner that has dropped

Usually a footing that never reached depth. Ottawa and eastern Ontario practice commonly takes footings to 1.5 m, deeper than the 1.2 m used further south. A shallow footing heaves every winter.

Guards you can move by hand

Guard posts fastened into decking instead of through the rim joist. Retightening screws does nothing. The post gets reconnected to the frame itself.

Stairs that sag or bounce

Stringers rotted at the bottom where they sit on the ground, no landing pad under them, or a run that was under-supported from the start.

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How We Decide Repair or Replace

Three checks, in order. If the first one fails, the rest stop mattering.

Start at the footings

If the footings never went to depth, everything above them is sitting on a structure that moves every winter. That is the one finding that usually points to replacement rather than repair, because you cannot get under a finished deck and fix it cheaply.

Then the frame

We probe joists, beams and the rim with an awl. If the tool catches, the wood is sound. If it sinks in, that member is done. Scattered soft spots get sistered or replaced. Widespread softness means the frame is at the end of its life.

Then the surface

Boards, guards and stairs are the cheapest layer to fix and the easiest to judge. Sound framing under a tired surface is the outcome you want, because you keep the expensive part and change the part you touch.

What Deck Repair Work Costs

Published 2026 market ranges for the pieces of work we are most often asked about. Your written quote sets the actual price.

Railing or guard replacement

$25 – $250 per linear foot

  • Includes reconnecting posts to the frame properly
  • Wood at the low end, glass or cable at the high end
  • Often the single fix that makes an older deck feel safe again
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Most popular

Rebuilding a stair run

$500 – $1,500 per run

  • New stringers, treads and risers
  • A proper landing pad so the stringers are not sitting in dirt
  • Graspable handrail where an exterior run has more than three risers
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Full tear-down and rebuild

$15,000 – $50,000

  • Where the footings or the frame have reached the end
  • Range covers size and material from pressure-treated to composite
  • Permit needed once the surface is more than 600 mm above grade
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Our Process

How a Deck Inspection Turns Into a Repair

1

We get under it

Ledger and flashing, post bases, footing depth where we can establish it, joist and beam condition, hanger and fastener corrosion. Photos of anything you cannot see yourself.

2

You get the findings straight

What is dangerous, what is deteriorating and what is cosmetic, kept in those three groups. If the honest answer is that repair is not worth it, we say so.

3

A written quote, by item

Priced so you can see what each piece costs and decide to do all of it, or the structural items now and the cosmetic ones later.

4

The repair, and a re-check

Work done, the area cleaned up, and the repaired sections loaded and pushed on before we leave. Any workmanship warranty is set out in your written quote, job by job.

Repair Clients

Feedback shared directly with us by clients.

5/5

The team repaired and reinforced our existing deck, replaced the damaged boards, and improved the stairs. They worked efficiently and cleaned the entire area before leaving.

David C.

Ottawa

Direct Client

5/5

Our new deck has completely transformed our backyard. The workmanship is excellent, the railings look great, and the entire structure feels solid. Thank you for the professional service.

Robert M.

Ottawa

Direct Client

5/5

Deck Builders Experts did an amazing job building our new backyard deck in Ottawa. The crew was professional, organized, and completed everything on schedule. The finished deck looks beautiful and feels very sturdy.

James R.

Ottawa

Direct Client

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Deck Repair Questions

How can I tell if my ledger board is failing?

From above, look for the deck pulling away from the house even slightly, a gap opening at the siding, or staining and soft siding along that line. From below, look for whether there is flashing over the top of the ledger and whether it is bolted or nailed. Nails alone are a problem. If you cannot see flashing, water has been running behind that board for as long as the deck has been there, and it needs opening up.

My deck posts are set straight into concrete. Is that bad?

It is one of the most common shortcuts we find, and yes, it shortens the life of the post considerably. Concrete poured around a post holds water against the wood right at grade, which is exactly where rot starts. A post should sit on a galvanized saddle above the concrete so water drains away. You can check your own deck for this in about thirty seconds with a flashlight.

One corner of my deck dropped over the winter. Why?

Almost always a footing that did not reach frost depth. Footings in Ottawa and eastern Ontario are commonly taken to 1.5 m, deeper than the 1.2 m minimum common in southern Ontario. A shallow footing gets lifted by frost each winter and does not always come back to where it started. Shimming the post treats the symptom. The footing itself has to be dealt with.

Can you replace just the rotten boards and leave the rest?

Yes, and it is worth doing when the framing underneath is sound. The thing to know in advance is that new boards will not match weathered ones, and on a stained deck the colour difference stays visible until the whole surface gets refinished. Where more than a scattering of boards are gone, replacing the full surface usually looks better and costs less per board.

The stairs feel spongy in the middle. What causes that?

Usually one of three things: stringers that have rotted where they meet the ground because there is no landing pad under them, treads that are spanning too far without a centre stringer, or a stair run that was never properly fastened at the top. All three are fixable, and all three get worse quickly once they start, because a flexing stair loosens every connection it has.

Do you repair decks built by someone else?

That is most of the repair work we do. We do not need to know who built it or when. We need to get underneath it, look at the ledger, the footings and the frame, and tell you what is actually going on. What we will not do is quote a repair without going under the deck, because the visible problem is rarely the whole story.

Something on Your Deck Feel Wrong?

Free written quotes on deck repairs and structural work across Ottawa and the surrounding communities.

Get a Free Quote Call (343) 505-3958
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